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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23117857">oh captain my captain</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo'>unicyclehippo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Caduceus/Fjord is only hinted at and also not really at all, F/F, but I intend it as a thing so ur welcome and appreciated if u read it in the same way</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 05:41:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,441</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23117857</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Fjord falls down. Beau steps up. </p>
<p>or, I'm incapable of writing an entirely well-adjusted Beau so why not have her overworked and under attended by her friends?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Caduceus Clay/Fjord, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>420</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>oh captain my captain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hi im unicyclehippo on tumblr too, feel free to sling a prompt my way. there is a point in which my caffeine abandoned me &amp; i apologise that everything beyond that point is somewhat less detailed</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A horizon so still and flat as to appear to be the smoothest obsidian glass is marred only by the flickering lights of the armada. The ships do not break the surface, nor do they make waves or send ripples to alter the reflective mirror—black above, black below—for their passage is halted. Despite the roiling black of the sky, the tang of ozone that should promise a storm, the sails hang empty. The wind does not blow.</p>
<p>Tonight, the Wildmother holds her breath; she waits to see what will become of her son.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>It’s an apology or a trick, Beau figures, the way the ocean lays still—becalmed—all about them. Whichever it is, trick or treasure, Beau hates the ocean now with a fury she reserves for just a few things. It is a dramatic and painful shift from the day before; she had thought, she had really <em>let herself think</em>, that when everything was over she could have a life on the sea.</p>
<p>The spokes of the great wheel are rough; not splintered, not anymore, though the heavily grained make of it has Beau thinking that once upon a time, perhaps, the first captain of this ship might have had a different time of it. There are grooves where long splinters have been levered out of the wood and broken away. She runs her fingers over these sections idly, wraps calloused hands around the spokes. There is nowhere to direct the ship, paralysed as she is by the stilled sea, but Beau will be prepared when the storm they’re promised eventually does pour down upon them and fill the sails once more.</p>
<p>It’s tempting to think about it, to let her mind drift, to <em>imagine</em>—but the instant her mind starts to wander, it wanders its way down to the first deck, to the main mast and the body she had seen beneath it and—Beau shores up her expression to calm, to quiet, matching the waters around them, and firmly keeps her mind under her own control. There is work to be done.</p>
<p>Marius takes the steps two at a time. ‘B—Captain,’ he calls, and stands a little taller when she turns her attention on him. ‘The <em>Mercurial</em> is sending those guards over. Did you want to go down and meet them?’</p>
<p>Beau flexes her fingers. They’re cold and stiff from a night on deck. Her neck feels equally stiff when she nods. ‘Yeah. Anyone else on deck?’</p>
<p>‘Caleb.’</p>
<p>‘Okay.’ Beau flicks idly through her options. She’s thought about this plenty, since she had asked Jester to Send to the Martinet, and she thinks this is the right pick. ‘Get Yasha. Tell her – I want her up here with me.’</p>
<p>‘Yessir,’ Marius agrees, and he barrels down the steps.</p>
<p>She hears a muffled swear, the meaty sound of his palm slapping to the railing.</p>
<p>‘Marius.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, Captain?’</p>
<p>‘Don’t – don’t break your neck.’ <em>We won’t waste a diamond on you</em>, she thinks but doesn’t say. At a certain point, jokes become cruel. She thinks they have another, enough to call him back from Death’s grip.</p>
<p>They’d do it. Maybe she should tell him that.</p>
<p>‘Yessir,’ Marius calls up, a little breathlessly.</p>
<p>She’s pretty sure he knows.</p>
<p>Shelda is young and has been on the ship for four fucking weeks so she probably shouldn’t be trusted with the wheel but Beau has long since sent Galan to see what he can do—what little he can do—about the massive line of scrapes and breaks from Jester’s wall of swords and blades and with Orly… With Orly in his state, and with Galan busy, and Marius acting as Beau’s personal runabout currently she’s the only one who can take over.</p>
<p>‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ Beau tells her out the corner of her mouth.</p>
<p>Shelda musters a grin. ‘No worries about that. Captain,’ she tacks on. ‘Things are…pretty wild around you lot, huh.’</p>
<p>‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She returns Shelda’s grin, and it doesn’t look like the girl—what the fuck is she saying, the <em>girl</em> like she’s some knee-high kid and not a hair younger than Beau—notices anything off about it. Beau sounds a bit like Dairon when she rattles off her instructions. ‘Don’t move from the wheel. Don’t let anyone not from this ship take it. I’m going to organize a watch so the guards are never alone—you up to being part of that?’</p>
<p>‘Of course.’</p>
<p>‘You’re allowed to say no,’ Beau tells her, and is reluctantly pleased by the way Shelda glares.</p>
<p>‘I’m up to it,’ the girl bites out.</p>
<p>‘Okay. Okay.’ Beau steps fully away from the wheel. The sky is bruise black and darker; the only light is from the handful of hanging lanterns and the pools of firelight that drenches onto the deck below them. The lanterns, that is, and Caleb, who threads flame around his fingers. The work is not absent-minded, for all that he doesn’t appear to have to watch it happen; the flame licks at his fingers, billowing bright and then dim again though there is no wind to affect it, and for an instant as it grows large again and wreathes about his sooted fingers, the flame appears to Beau as fond and familiar and playful as a cat.</p>
<p>‘Put that out before they get to the ship,’ she tells him, stepping up beside him.</p>
<p>‘Why would I do that?’</p>
<p>‘So it doesn’t look like a threat?’</p>
<p>‘Perhaps it is.’</p>
<p>Beau glances sideways at him. Caleb’s face is a tableau of firelight and its shadows, a darkness that accentuates the gaunt features, the proud nose. The bags under his eyes.</p>
<p>‘Put it out,’ she says again. This time, it is an order.</p>
<p>There is a moment where he wavers, eyes fixed on the ladder they will lower to the oarsmen, and then he rolls his eyes over to her. Stares. Closes his hand around the spark.</p>
<p>That is how Yasha finds them moments later: tense and standing in the dark. She holds up her hand and casts her own light—flameless, divinely bright. It has a harshness that the lanterns and firelight did not and any trace of shadow within its radius is burned away unrelentingly.</p>
<p>‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Were we standing in the dark for a reason?’</p>
<p>‘To be unthreatening,’ Caleb says, lips twisting sourly.</p>
<p>‘Shut up, Caleb. No. That’s great, Yasha. Thank you.’ In the light of her spell, Beau notices the red that stains the brown of her cloak. She swallows bile and shrugs out of it, flips it to blue. That suits her better right now anyway. Expositor Beauregard.</p>
<p>‘Sure. You’re welcome.’</p>
<p>There is a moment. Then, ‘They haven’t boarded yet. We do not need to do this. There is time, still, to send them back.’</p>
<p>‘<em>Caleb</em>,’</p>
<p>‘I do not trust them!’</p>
<p>Beau whirls to face him. Stops short of jabbing her finger into his chest—he’s still practically concave and after the events of the night it might be just enough to finish him off, send him into so many sparks of firelight like an exploded Frumpkin. ‘We don’t need to <em>trust</em> <em>them</em>,’ she hisses. ‘We need <em>sleep</em>. And we need to make sure that <em>while</em> we are asleep, fish-faced fucks don’t climb up the sides of our ship and <em>kill us</em>.’</p>
<p>‘These men are our enemies, every bit as much as the fish, Beauregard.’</p>
<p>Calm layers upon calm upon calm until the thin veneer of control Beau is clutching at is miles thick and she the faintest echo buried beneath it.</p>
<p>‘Tonight they are our allies,’ Beau tells him, her own voice ringing in her ears like she’s hearing it from the end of a long corridor. ‘If you don’t think you can control yourself, go below deck.’ He won’t. She knows he won’t. But the threat is enough to pull him back into line.</p>
<p>‘I will stay.’</p>
<p>‘Then keep a cool head.’ She flicks a look down at his hand, where a coil of flame has sparked around his ring finger. He squashes it.</p>
<p>From below, just above the waterline, there comes a knock on wood and a hoarse call. ‘Lo, the—really? Lo, The <em>Balleater</em>! Guard from The <em>Mercurial</em>. And a guest from The <em>Wind of Eons</em>. Permission to come aboard?’</p>
<p>Beau leaves Caleb smouldering by the mast and steps forward, gestures for Marius to lower the ladder. ‘Permission granted.’</p>
<p>It’s not a huge number of guards—just ten, and two of them look green around the metaphorical gills. But there is also a tall, broad-shouldered woman with white twisted braids down to her waist, dark-skinned and blue-marked, whose eyes are every shifting colour of the sea. Black, right now, as she stares down at the inky waters. She cuts a keen look over the mast, and the deck, and the acid-splattered rails, and the wheel in Shelda’s hands, and the fish-person hanging in a macabre warning off the side of the ship, and to Beau finally.</p>
<p>‘You’re not a sailor.’</p>
<p>‘I’m the Captain,’ Beau tells her, and holds out a hand. ‘And no, I’m not. Expositor Beauregard.’</p>
<p>‘Hmm. Elementalist Bird.’</p>
<p>‘Are you a sailor?’ Yasha asks, and Beau is surprised enough by that to turn and look over her shoulder at their normally stoic friend.</p>
<p>Bird narrows her eyes. ‘I am. You are not.’</p>
<p>‘No.’</p>
<p>‘But you are of the storm.’</p>
<p>‘Yes.’</p>
<p>‘Hmm.’</p>
<p>‘Yasha,’ Beau introduces, since it doesn’t seem like Yasha is going to. ‘Caleb.’</p>
<p>‘Hallo,’ he says. ‘Did the Martinet send you?’</p>
<p>‘I volunteered,’ Elementalist Bird tells them all, in a flat bored tone. Her eyes skim the seas and the sky and the ship again, darting from place to place not distractedly but in a remarkably sharp fashion. Cataloguing. Examining.</p>
<p><em>A very smart woman</em>, Beau decides, <em>and one not to be underestimated</em>.</p>
<p>Still somewhat turned to face her, Beau raises a brow to Yasha, who nods. She will keep an eye on the Elementalist.</p>
<p>To the wizard, and the guards, Beau says, ‘We appreciate you coming over to the Balleater.’</p>
<p>‘Is that <em>really</em> your ships name?’ one of the younger guards asks. Sucks in a sharp breath at the elbow that digs into her ribs. ‘Sorry. Captain.’</p>
<p>‘Yes. This is the Balleater. We were attacked very early this morning by some deep-sea creatures.’</p>
<p>‘Like that?’ Bird points to their warning.</p>
<p>‘Some. Variations on it.’</p>
<p>‘Interesting. May I examine it?’</p>
<p>Beau nods. Ignores Caleb’s small sound of upset. ‘Any findings come to us first. He’s our enemy.’</p>
<p>‘And after?’</p>
<p>‘Catalogue away.’</p>
<p>Bird’s eyes glint with satisfaction. She nods, easily agreeing to the arrangement.</p>
<p>‘Our people will have the wheel. There are bunks made up in the berth for your people,’ Beau tells the guards, who nod. ‘We need a constant watch to supplement our crew until we pass the dangerous waters.’</p>
<p>‘Any idea of the distance of that?’ a man asks. From the markings on his armour, he is the group’s Captain.</p>
<p>‘Some way from the reef,’ Beau guesses. ‘The further the better.’</p>
<p>‘Understood.’</p>
<p>She gives them more information—what their attacks had been, how they had managed to stun them, the fact that they can climb the ship and some can cast spells—as they ask, and by the time first light has begun to peek through the thick clouds, the guards have taken their places on deck.</p>
<p>Caleb, mistrustful, retreats below deck. Silver thread shines on his fingers and in his hair, tying back his ponytail. Beau wonders idly if he could wear it as a crown. If it would tell him if someone had tried to charm him.</p>
<p>‘What do you want me to do?’ Yasha asks, pausing by the steps that will take her below deck.</p>
<p>‘Just. Keep an eye out?’ Yasha nods. Beau lets the certainty in the gesture reassure her; feels a minor weight lifted from her shoulders. ‘Thanks.’</p>
<p>‘Beau?’</p>
<p>‘Yeah.’</p>
<p>‘Caleb doesn’t like having her on the ship.’</p>
<p>A snide comment occurs to her. A few snide comments occur to her. On another night, she’d say them. They might even make Yasha laugh. Tonigh, Beau just nods.</p>
<p>‘I know.’</p>
<p>‘I think. He is nervous? They seem. Very powerful.’</p>
<p>‘I know.’</p>
<p>‘What I am saying,’ Yasha says, as carefully as she says anything, ‘is I think this is the right decision. I think you made the right decision. Bringing them here.’</p>
<p>Beau lets herself smile. ‘Thanks. Go on. Make sure Bird isn’t kidnapping Caleb.’</p>
<p>Yasha tilts her head to the side. In the light of her spell, her eyes gleam like little jewels. There is a lightness to them that Beau thinks she is imagining until Yasha says, ‘I think. It is not kidnapping for an adult.’</p>
<p>‘You’re right. Make sure Bird isn’t <em>abducting </em>Caleb.’</p>
<p>‘Mm. Yes. I’ll cut her in half if she tries.’</p>
<p>‘As good as any counterspell. Yasha?’ Beau calls quietly after her before she can descend. Yasha turns back, expectant. ‘Attune Magician’s Judge. Just in case.’</p>
<p>‘Ja. Okay. That’s – a good idea.’</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>There is plenty to do, always. Galan reports his good work. Beau sends him off to get some sleep. Then there are eleven more bellies on their ship, who brought some supplies with them but not plenty, and Beau isn’t a good cook but she’s fair.</p>
<p>The food tastes like salt and ash in her mouth. She leaves most of it on her plate for someone else to finish. There’s more work to be done.</p>
<p>Marius is a quick study, and Beau is even faster. If he shows her once, sometimes once and almost twice, she can replicate the work—the knots, the minor adjustments to their course in an effort to catch a little breeze in their foresail.</p>
<p>‘You should get some sleep,’ Marius tells her as the sky bleeds into proper dawn.</p>
<p>Beau nods absently. Her mind clicks over the rest of the jobs she knows they have to do: the damage to the rail has to be repaired, once Galan is awake; Caleb will want to examine the fish person alongside Bird, probably with Veth as well; she has to talk to the Martinet about what he might want for his aid, but she suspects that job at least can be relegated until they are back in Nicodranas, back in Zadash even; she has to go over her notes on Uka’toa in case there is a clue in there somewhere, maybe have a look at—</p>
<p>‘Marius, take the helm.’</p>
<p>‘Ah – okay?’</p>
<p>She doesn’t wait to see if he looks comfortable with it before she takes off for the captain’s quarters. It’s not a terribly large cabin but sits apart from the rest of the ship quarters, the smaller cabins below deck and the open crew berth in the lowest section of the ship. It’s a handsome space—the glass doors leading out onto the small balcony, a small square window, a bed, a desk. Or…it was. Beau steps in, closes the door behind her before any curious guard can look in through the gap.</p>
<p>Beau sucks in a sharp breath at the scene; regrets it instantly when her nose, the roof of her mouth, floods with the metallic tang of blood that hangs heavy in the air. Red drenches the bedsheets black, and dots across the wooden floorboards. The window is broken outwards into wicked shards, and the curtains hang limp and heavy with salt-spray.</p>
<p>Beau steps forward.</p>
<p>Tries her best to imagine the scene—what were they after, how many were in here, how can they stop it from happening again—but after long minutes of trying, all she can see is Fjord and red pouring from his chest and the last shuddering gasp of air and—</p>
<p>Beau turns. Presses her forehead against cool, rough wood. Focuses on the splinters trying to push against her skin. Covers her mouth, her nose, with one hand and sucks in another breath; this time, all she tastes is her own sweat, residue of a bad breakfast, and the faint taste of the oil she had spent a good portion of the morning wiping onto the railing to protect the acid-burned splotches from the elements.</p>
<p>
  <em>One. Two. Three. Breathe. Focus on the information. Let go of your connections. </em>
</p>
<p>Beau holds Dairon’s words in her mind and turns once more. Eyes the space with a curious, careful eye.</p>
<p>She lasts two minutes before slipping from the room, stomach churning.</p>
<p>‘Marius.’</p>
<p>‘Captain?’</p>
<p>She steps up beside him. Fixes her attention onto the tear in his shirt—this one not artificial, not designed, but from the skewering spike of a poisonous fish-creep. Red and an odd, sick purple-white stain blooms around the hole.</p>
<p>‘The captain’s quarters. He’ll need them when he’s – It’s a mess right now.’</p>
<p>‘I bet. That’s where he was attacked, wasn’t it?’</p>
<p>Beau tries not to flinch. She doesn’t think she succeeds. ‘Yeah. Go—<em>will you</em>,’ she corrects herself, ‘Will you get it clean?’</p>
<p>Marius dares to clap his hand onto her shoulder. Beau catches his wrist; squeezes it not too painfully until he lets it drop.</p>
<p>‘Too familiar, Marius.’</p>
<p>‘Ah. Yes, Captain.’</p>
<p>‘<em>Fuck</em> you, dude. It’s <em>Beau</em>.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, Beau.’</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>Marius returns after an hour, maybe a little longer. He doesn’t say anything, only nods.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>The wind starts to howl. Whips storm clouds from the sky to show a morning brilliant with red and gold. Beau hopes beyond any hope she’s ever let herself entertain before that it isn’t the Wildmother’s despair.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>The sails fill.</p>
<p>Two ships from the armada tack and shift and eventually it becomes apparent that the <em>Balleater</em> has a guard. Allies within reach, if anything is to happen tonight.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>The night is long, and as dark as the fears Beau refuses to entertain. A cold wind keeps up a steady pace, pushing them farther and farther from the many dangers of the Inkclaw Reef.</p>
<p>Marius stops bugging Beau to sleep and Shelda takes over for him. Beau listens to her even less than him, which is difficult to do because she hadn’t listened to Marius at all, and eventually the younger girl stops trying. Shelda keeps a steady presence at Beau’s elbow, and a keen eye on the guards who make a slow, watchful patrol of the ship above and below deck.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>Dawn has once more bled into morning when Orly slowly—oh so slowly—climbs onto deck the following morning. Beau hooks her foot around a stool, drags it close by the wheel.</p>
<p>‘Sit, Orly,’ she commands when the tortle struggles to stand beside her. ‘Captain’s orders.’</p>
<p>‘Mm-mighty comfortable with that,’ he comments. He doesn’t sound displeased. Amused, if anything. ‘Telling p-people what to do.’</p>
<p>‘Yeah, I’m pretty great at being Captain. Turns out that no one can tell you what to do if you’re the boss.’</p>
<p>‘That’s—mm—how it works,’ Orly agrees, nods his head. It takes a long time because he’s so tired and because his neck is so long that it takes a considerable time for him to lower it all the way and lift it again in a single nod. ‘M-m-m,’ he says, humming the letter for some time before he chooses another word. ‘Cap’n.’</p>
<p>‘Yup.’</p>
<p>‘Have you—mm—slept?’ From the way he eyes her, he thought he already knew the answer. Wrinkles crease and crease and crease outward from his ponderous frown. ‘They’re worried about you. I heard ‘em.’</p>
<p>‘Do tortles have ears?’ Beau asks. <em>Deflection, deflection, deflection</em>, she hears Jester say cheerfully. She asks another question of Orly. ‘What do you think?’</p>
<p>‘A ship has t’ stay on course,’ Orly replies. ‘You did sleep?’</p>
<p>‘A bit.’</p>
<p>‘Hmm.’</p>
<p>‘It’s hard with strangers on board.’</p>
<p>‘Mm. That it is. Y’need—hmm—steady hands on the wheel. M-M-<em>Marius</em> grew on you then, hey?’</p>
<p>Beau scoffs. ‘Like a mould.’</p>
<p>Orly laughs. Then, he breathes in and fills his instrument with air. At the sound that whistles and wheels overhead, piercing the air with its haunting melody, Beau feels her lungs inflate fully for the first time in over a day. He’s okay.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>‘I’m sorry,’ she says to Orly a little while later. ‘That I didn’t save you.’</p>
<p>Orly’s neck creaks like twisting leather. ‘Couldn’t.’</p>
<p>‘Yeah.’</p>
<p>‘I know you tried, Cap’n.’</p>
<p>‘Captain for now.’</p>
<p>‘M-m-mighty long title, that. M-might just stick with—hm—<em>Cap’n</em>.’</p>
<p>Beau huffs a laugh. ‘Fair.’ Waits a little while, leaning heavily on the crossbeamed spokes of the wheel. ‘Orly? When everything is done…I think I’d like to come back. Learn to sail for real.’</p>
<p>‘Hmm. We’ll put you in with M-Marius.’</p>
<p>‘Oh fuck. Never mind.’</p>
<p>Orly laughs again.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>‘We’d be happy to have you, Cap’n,’ Orly tells her later, when Beau switches out her position with Galan.</p>
<p>She doesn’t get to hear it all that often. It’s—it’s nice.</p>
<p>The words slip under the veneer of her control; they’re nice, and Beau appreciates them, but any intrusion is too much and she has to make a quick exit, shielding her eyes from the sun and from anyone who might look too close.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>Beau lays in an uncomfortable bunk and closes her eyes. She forces the blue of a tame ocean to wash in around her and floats in it. She doesn’t think about the <em>crack</em> of bone as a body falls heavily to the deck. She doesn’t think about the glint of metal from beneath rust, drenched in sea-and-rain water and blood. She doesn’t think about the cruel scrape of metal on bone. She doesn’t think about the two screams—one whining high in her ears, shivering through her, sticking her to place, and the other ripping at her own throat. Fjord’s name tasting like blood on her tongue. She very carefully doesn’t think about any of that for the next four hours.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>If Orly is awake and moving, that means Fjord is as well. It has to mean that, because otherwise <em>someone</em> would have told Beau. Surely, someone would have told her if—</p>
<p>She wrenches herself away from that thought, busies herself with a kettle and a pot and a handful of leaves she thinks is probably tea. It’s almost noon and hunger and thirst is gnawing at her gut and so she makes something and chokes it down and doesn’t think about the blockage in her throat whenever she thinks about the fact that Fjord hasn’t come up onto deck and he certainly hasn’t sought out Beau and she’s sure, she’s <em>sure</em> in a way that makes all her food come right back up that Fjord hates her, knows her like she knows herself, that she is <em>weak</em>, that she’s the worst kind of human. She didn’t save him, she didn’t <em>save him</em>, she didn’t—</p>
<p>She can look after his ship, though.</p>
<p>She prepares his cabin. It’s clean, now. Marius did a good job. There’s nothing for the wedges cut out of the wood, or the broken glass doors until they reach a port, but it is clean now.</p>
<p>Beau sends Shelda down for rest and tea. ‘Drink some tea,’ she orders the girl. ‘It’s good for you.’</p>
<p>‘So is sleep.’</p>
<p>‘I slept.’</p>
<p>Shelda scans her face for trace of a lie. There isn’t one; Beau did grab a few hours, enough to stave off exhaustion, before coming back up.</p>
<p>‘You’re not a bad first mate,’ the girl tells her.</p>
<p>Beau appreciates what she doesn’t say. Fjord is still Captain. Because he’s alive. Somewhere below deck.</p>
<p>‘I’m better in a crisis,’ Beau tells her. She doesn’t say—though she does think it—that she means in every way. Beau is an ordinary human to the rest of the people in her party, on this ship. She’s a barely functional human to other humans. But in a crisis? In a crisis, she doesn’t have as much to lose as them—she can hold strong. She’ll be okay. ‘Go on. Get some sleep—I need you in good shape in case those clouds turn into anything serious.’</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>‘How you going?’ Veth asks in that scratching voice, appearing near-silent at Beau’s side.</p>
<p>‘Wind is steady. We’ve got five, maybe six days left.’</p>
<p>Veth stares up at her with big, brown eyes. There is a hint of reproach in them, but mostly understanding; she doesn’t have to tell Beau that isn’t what she’d meant with her question.</p>
<p>‘How can I help, Cap’n?’</p>
<p>‘How are the guns?’</p>
<p>‘Clean as a whistle.’</p>
<p>‘Nice. Well, just make sure it’s—all in order, I guess? I don’t fucking know. Check in on Caleb—he’s been wandering around the deck as a cat.’ Beau scans the deck for the orange tabby as Veth mutters to herself. <em>So </em>that’s<em> where he’s been getting to</em>. ‘He doesn’t like the guards.’</p>
<p>‘Of course he doesn’t.’</p>
<p>‘I don’t think he’s up here. If he’s locked himself in his room again… Make sure he’s eating and drinking? He’s got a bad fucking habit of overworking himself when people get hurt.’</p>
<p>‘You’re such a hypocrite,’ Veth laughs. ‘Fine.’</p>
<p>She brings up dinner for Beau. It’s actually passable food and Beau wonders if that means Cad is doing things now, or if Veth had cooked it? It could just as easily have been any of the guards. Beau stops following her mind in circles around who and when and what it is and instead follows Veth with her eyes as the Halfling woman walks by Jester, emerging from below deck.</p>
<p>Veth makes a sly comment that Beau sees but can’t hear; she sees the way both women look over right at her and Beau salutes them, amused by the complete lack of subtlety.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>Jester knows how to talk to her to get her to do things, Beau discovers.</p>
<p>Wearing what looks like one of Fjord’s old shirts and a pair of Beau’s pants, she comes up onto the deck and leans against the railing, not far from Beau. It’s a strange look, the night clothes, and Beau stares at her until she remembers. Sees suddenly and vividly as though an illusion had been superimposed over her vision—sees Jester in her nightdress, sees the cloth soaked entirely red by the time the night ended. Red blooms heavy around her knees as she had sunk into the pool by Orly. Handprints.</p>
<p>‘I can’t sleep,’ Jester complains, interrupting Beau’s memory. ‘Will you help me?’</p>
<p>‘Are you trying to get me into bed? You don’t have to try that hard.’ Jester laughs. Beau smiles. ‘Seriously though, I’m good. I’ve slept. Whatever Veth told you, she’s lying.’</p>
<p>Jester blinks. Opens her eyes a fraction more widely. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she lies. ‘I sleep better when I can hear you snoring, Beau.’</p>
<p>‘Right.’</p>
<p>‘Mhm.’</p>
<p>‘Sure. I believe you.’</p>
<p>Jester knows she knows it’s a lie. It doesn’t seem to matter; not to Jester, and not to Beau. Jester smiles and doesn’t give Beau the chance to ignore her or turn her down. She walks closer and reaches out, takes Beau’s hand in her own.</p>
<p>‘Shelda,’ she calls. ‘Take the helm!’</p>
<p>‘Uh.’</p>
<p>Beau rolls her eyes. ‘Orly?’</p>
<p>‘Aye, Cap’n.’</p>
<p>‘Take the helm. I’m – getting some sleep, apparently.’</p>
<p>Shelda doesn’t have the good grace to hide her relief. ‘Great. About time.’</p>
<p>Orly is a little less obvious about it, but he still <em>smiles</em> and <em>nods</em>. ‘Aye, Cap’n. Any instructions?’</p>
<p>‘Keep her on path, master navigator. That’s all. Marius,’ she trails off threateningly, narrows her eyes at him. He has the audacity to laugh and salute her. Beau leans down to Jester as the girl drags her away. ‘He’s either coming into his own or he’s become a cocksure little prick,’ she grumbles.</p>
<p>Jester laughs. Looks up at her as they descend. ‘You really are good on a ship. You’ll make a really good spy pirate.’</p>
<p>‘Thanks.’</p>
<p>The word comes out rough. Short. Had Jester said something wrong? Beau doesn’t think so. But that doesn’t mean she’d said something right, either.</p>
<p>‘Beau?’ Jester says when they make it to her cabin.</p>
<p>‘Yeah.’</p>
<p>‘You can – you can relax now,’ she tells her. ‘You can…’ She puts her hands on Beau’s shoulders and Beau realizes for the first time that they’re sitting high and tight barely below her ears, tense. She forces herself to relax, feeling Jester’s fingers rubbing and kneading at the muscles there. After a little time, Jester says, ‘I’m sorry. For leaving you to figure it all out. And dealing with the Martinet and the guards and – and all of that. Orly was—and <em>Fjord</em>—and I couldn’t <em>think</em>, I was so tired, and,’</p>
<p>‘Jes. You brought him back to <em>life</em>. That’s a lot. That’s incredible and a lot.’</p>
<p>‘It really is.’</p>
<p>‘I get it. I do. That’s why—I’m always gonna look out for you guys,’ Beau tells her, and turns in her grip so she’s facing Jester. ‘You don’t have to worry. You shouldn’t have to worry while I’m around. I’ll do my best to make sure… I’ll do my best, Jester. I <em>promise</em>.’</p>
<p>Jester doesn’t drop her hand. They’re looped loose around Beau’s neck and she goes right back to work. Slowly. Gently. Rubbing little circles into the skin and the muscles beneath.</p>
<p>‘We know. You’re really good like that. But we probably…shouldn’t have all fucked <em>right</em> off. You’ve been doing a <em>lot</em>,’ Jester says, and she looks at Beau like she can see every second of the last almost two full days. ‘It’s okay,’ she says again. ‘You can relax now.’</p>
<p>Beau starts to let it work on her. Relaxes. Her shoulders begin to unwind, click down from their high position one vertebrae at a time until they near their usual position. It’s wonderful and also sucks a lot because as Beau starts to relax, she begins to feel the ache in her feet from standing all day, feels the heat of a dull sunburn and the residue of tension in all the muscles of her back and shoulders. Feels the weight in her chest grow ten-fold as all the energy she has been putting toward keeping calm, keeping controlled, starts to slip.</p>
<p>‘Is Fjord—Orly is up and, and he’s okay, but I haven’t—is Fjord,’</p>
<p>Jester’s brows shoot high on her forehead. ‘You haven’t seen him?’</p>
<p>Beau shakes her head no. Shame settles in her like rust, sharpening every drop of blood in her body, scraping through her with every beat of her heart.</p>
<p>She can’t meet Jester’s eyes anymore. Sees instead that Jester’s lips go slack in surprise, and then tilt faintly downward, soft and sad. Her hands slide down from Beau’s shoulders—Beau sags further into her—and she takes Beau’s hands and leads her from the room to the one right next door.</p>
<p>That settles something in Beau.</p>
<p>Fjord is close. She can check on him. If she wants. If she needs.</p>
<p>The door creaks open. The inside of the space is dark, but not gloomy. It is the dark of a room where someone is in a deep and healing sleep; purposeful, intentional, careful. Squinting through the haze of the dark, using the sliver of light the open door affords her, Beau can see the long-limbed Caduceus folded into a too-small chair beside the bed. He is snoring, his head tilted right back to lean against the wall. He looks haggard, his hair braided very tight and not very neat, as if only to keep it out of his eyes. His sleeves are a little stained with something brown that once might have been red, and they’re rolled up to his elbows. The smell of beeswax and soap is sharp and cuts through any other smells.</p>
<p>Beau forgets about Caduceus, forgets about Jester holding onto her, when she sees Fjord.</p>
<p>He looks like he’s sleeping peacefully. His face looks a little thin—not quite gaunt, but thin—and his skin is a pale mint. Not the healthy deep green she’s accustomed to.</p>
<p>A shaking breath escapes her lungs and Beau steps forward. Something tugs briefly on her hand before releasing her. She crawls onto the bed, feels the knock of wood on her shin. Continues up the bed and arranges herself carefully to curl at Fjord’s side. She keeps her hands tucked beneath her head, keeps her body very still, wary of hurting him.</p>
<p>‘Beau?’</p>
<p>Beau bites down on her tongue. Sniffs. Nods into Fjord’s shoulder when he moves, bleary-eyed, to seek her out.</p>
<p>‘Hey,’ he sighs.</p>
<p>‘Hey.’</p>
<p>‘You alright?’</p>
<p>‘Better now. You’re alive, hey.’</p>
<p>‘Takes more to—‘ he yawns. Grimaces. Puts a hand on his chest. ‘To keep me down.’</p>
<p>Beau nods.</p>
<p>Fjord curls an arm around her shoulders and pulls her arm around him in turn, shushing her when she worries about his chest, his scar, his hurt. He tightens his grip on her shoulder as much as he can, weak and tired as he is, when Beau starts to cry and doesn’t stop. Still and quiet, unmoving, Beau soaks his shoulder in salt.</p>
<p>It could have been minutes. It could have been hours that she lays there. Eventually, Jester comes around the side of the bed and puts a hand on Beau’s back, talks her gently into standing and leaving. The bed is too small for two and her hip and shoulder has started to ache from staying so still. Fjord is asleep again.</p>
<p>Beau stands and follows Jester back to their cabin.</p>
<p>Jester sits her on the edge of the big bed and gives her a moment to herself. Beau swipes under her nose with her wrist. Sniffles. Toes off her boots. She’s too tired to do anything more and Jester doesn’t demand it of her; she crawls into the bed and pulls Beau down. Settles her as though it is Beau’s first time sleeping, like Beau has forgotten how to do it.</p>
<p>‘He’s alive,’ Beau says into the dark, the soft of the mattress beneath her and the soft of Jester beside her.</p>
<p>‘Yeah.’</p>
<p>She thought she had been all cried out. She was wrong. Beau is horrified to find her first sob catches in her throat, balloons out and <em>pops</em> with a wet hiccough. It’s loud and only the first of many that continue in great big heaving sobs. She grabs at Jester and cries and cries until she can’t <em>breathe</em>.</p>
<p>Jester coos. Hums and pats at her hair, strokes down her back. Beau thinks she might be crying as well but her awareness of all that is foggy and faint; her entire self is turned toward nothing beyond the ache of fear and relief that cuts through her torso, muscles in stiches from the effort of giving it all up.</p>
<p>‘I watched him, I watched him f-fall, I couldn’t do <em>shit</em>,’ she tells Jester, teeth chattering, forming the words too sharply. ‘I l-let them <em>get</em> to him, I let them do it, didn’t stop them, let them <em>kill</em> my best friend, ‘m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m s-so <em>sorry</em>,'</p>
<p>Jester gasps, tries her utmost to crush Beau in her hug so that she is everywhere—<em>engulfing</em> Beau with the scratch of her sleep shirt against Beau’s cheek, the soft of her arms pressing into her, her belly hitching with her own sobs, the scent of her perfume the only thing Beau can smell, sweat and salt and lavender.</p>
<p>Beau cries until the crying runs out.</p>
<p>By then, all there is to hear is her own slow, even breaths. The slap of waves against the ship. Caduceus’s snores from the cabin next door. And Jester, humming a lilting lullaby that carries Beau into a proper sleep.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>How long has it been? Jester is moving, shifting. Cold seeps into the space between them as Jester moves away.</p>
<p>‘<em>Don’t leave</em>,’ Beau begs, words hoarse and cracked. She curls in on herself instantly, regrets the words, regrets the tone. Regrets it doubly when she hears Jester’s sharp intake of breath.</p>
<p>‘I’m not <em>leaving</em>, Beau,’ she tells her, and instantly slots herself back into place. Arms coming around to hold her. ‘Do you hear me? I’m not leaving.’</p>
<p>‘What—‘ Beau clears her throat. Her head is heavy and pained, an ache having settled behind her eyes at some point.</p>
<p>‘I was going to get my notebook,’ Jester explains. Something soft drags over Beau’s forehead. ‘I don’t need it. I’ll stay here with you.’</p>
<p>‘You don’t—need to do that.’</p>
<p>Jester ignores her. Twitches the blanket up higher around their shoulders.</p>
<hr/>
<p>There is a reason that Jester chose the biggest bed for herself. Beau thinks that anyone she brings into her bed in the future ought to be warned about this. Beau had already known, has already seen it for herself, that Jester is prone to starfishing. She claims the entirety of the bed for herself, limbs akimbo. Beau wakes cold, curled wherever limbs and tail haven’t claimed, clinging to the side of the bunk.</p>
<p>She blinks. Tries to figure out why she had woken. It takes her a second to see the figure in the doorway of the cabin—and the tray in her hands.</p>
<p>‘Morning,’ Shelda smirks.</p>
<p>Beau can’t see her face, not with her eyes all gunked with sleep, but she can <em>hear</em> the smirk. ‘Fuck off.’</p>
<p>‘Happy to. Just here to drop off breakfast.’ Shelda pauses. ‘Captain’s orders,’ she says with a certain weight.</p>
<p>It takes Beau a moment. She grins. ‘He’s up?’ Shelda nods. Beau sinks down into her pillow, into the mattress. Sighs happily. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes and now she can see the way Shelda’s eyes skip from Beau to Jester and back again.</p>
<p>The girl smiles. ‘Good for you to get some rest. You were looking ragged.’</p>
<p>‘Go fuck yourself.’</p>
<p>Jester grumbles at the noise. Rolls over and pulls Beau back into her like she’s a teddy bear—yanking a startled ‘<em>oof</em>’ from her that makes Shelda laugh. The girl backs away, leaving breakfast by the door. Jester sets her forehead to the curve of Beau’s neck. Her nose brushes the triangle of skin.</p>
<p>‘I am <em>not</em> the little spoon.’</p>
<p>‘Hm. This position kinda says otherwise,’ Jester murmurs. Nuzzles in again. Kisses her neck.</p>
<p>Beau freezes. Jester freezes. She holds Beau tighter, like she’s scared Beau will leave.</p>
<p>Smart.</p>
<p>Beau was about to do exactly that.</p>
<p>After a frozen moment, Jester tangles her tail around Beau’s ankle. Up and up, around her calf. Beau jumps—nearly falls off the side of the bed, if not for the way Jester flexes and holds her on the bed, wriggles them both back and away from the edge.</p>
<p>‘Why are you all the way over there?’</p>
<p>‘Because you’re a bed hog.’</p>
<p>‘What? No I’m not.’</p>
<p>‘You kick like you’re a dancing donkey. I have <em>bruises</em>.’</p>
<p>‘I <em>don’t</em>. Do I?’</p>
<p>Beau grins. Pushes it down into her pillow. ‘I don’t mind,’ she admits. ‘But yeah. You do.’</p>
<p>The bickering has settled them a little. Settled <em>her</em> a little, to the point where she doesn’t feel like leaping out of bed and running. But as her mind shifts from <em>this</em> here and now, it drifts to the night before—and to her crying like a baby.</p>
<p>Beau groans. Shifts so she is laying on her back and drags the pillow over her head.</p>
<p>Jester trails her fingers down Beau’s shoulder. Pats her fondly on the belly. <em>Dares</em> enough to kiss Beau’s shoulder. ‘Are you okay?’</p>
<p>‘Yes. No.’</p>
<p>Jester laughs. ‘Well, which is it?’</p>
<p>Beau turns her head beneath the pillow. Lifts it enough to peek out at Jester, nose crinkled. ‘Last night was…’</p>
<p>‘Yeah.’</p>
<p>‘…Thanks, Jes. For everything.’</p>
<p>‘You’re welcome,’ Jester tells her cheerfully. She pulls the pillow off Beau’s head—ignores her groan—and sets it under her own head, mirroring Beau’s position and laying on her back beside her. She folds her hands on her own belly, threads her fingers together. She pulls a face. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get you earlier.’</p>
<p>‘Don’t be.’</p>
<p>‘But I am. Because you were blaming yourself, right?’ The look in her eyes tells Beau that it’s not really a question Beau has to answer. Jester knows. ‘I didn’t realize.’</p>
<p>‘It’s not like I told you.’</p>
<p>‘I wish you would.’ She breathes it <em>so</em> quietly. Beau meets her eyes; waits as Jester’s gaze flicks between her eyes, examining her, trying to read her. ‘I wish…that you’d talk to me like we used to.'</p>
<p>There’s something impossible about this morning. Still and largely undisturbed, it feels like they could do anything and it wouldn’t be quite real. There is a safety in it; their real lives are safe from the consequences of what they do in this dimension.</p>
<p>Jester untangles her fingers. Reaches a hand up between their faces.</p>
<p>Beau moves forward an inch. Wriggles close so that she can lift her head and set it down again, directly onto Jester’s palm. Jester’s fingers curl. Stroke at the fine, soft skin at the corner of Beau’s eye. The faint bump of an old scar. Fingertips paint tingling lines against her skin. Jester holds the whole weight of Beau’s head in her hand.</p>
<p>‘You pulled away from me. Don’t say you haven’t because I’ve noticed.’</p>
<p>‘I’m <em>trying</em>, Jes,’</p>
<p>‘To do what?’</p>
<p>‘To be…good. Better.’</p>
<p>‘But you <em>are</em> good, Beau.’</p>
<p>She sounds so confused. Like she can’t possibly begin to see what Beau sees. Like she can’t fathom of a world in which Beau isn’t already good.</p>
<p>Beau wonders, then, if Jester is a better liar than before. She’s certainly had the practice.</p>
<p>She thinks Jester is telling the truth, or at least that she believes in what she said.</p>
<p>‘What does that have to do with me, anyway?’ Jester asks.</p>
<p>Beau blinks. Closes her eyes. Opens them again. Whatever is visible in them—she can hazard a guess to what that might be, can feel her <em>heart</em> like a hand is closed around it, tugging it inexorably toward Jester. It’s hers, belongs to her, so that doesn’t bother Beau. It’s <em>hers</em>. Whatever is visible in her eyes, it makes Jester suck in a breath.</p>
<p>Beau lifts a hand. Brushes a curl back behind Jester’s ear. She uses the movement, the momentum, to turn, to lean forward and hold herself half over Jester, who still beneath her, breath catching. Beau takes her in—it is not an examination, this. She isn’t counting Jester’s freckles, or her lashes, though now that she thinks about it, she’s interested in doing that some day. This is something other. Beau takes her in—the sleepy look in her eyes that burns entirely away as Jester focuses on her. The heart shape of her face. The rumpled lines of sleep across one cheek. The way her mouth drops open the smallest bit in her surprise.</p>
<p>She’s <em>lovely</em>.</p>
<p>Beau leans down and kisses Jester on the corner of her mouth. Not her lips, but not her cheek either.</p>
<p>Jester’s hand—the one that had held Beau’s face—slides down the sheets and presses into the soft of Beau’s side.</p>
<p>‘<em>Oh</em>.’</p>
<p>‘I don’t wanna be selfish,’ Beau tells her. Pulls away, nose brushing against Jester’s. ‘I don’t want…to be bad. I don’t know how to love well.’</p>
<p>‘You love me?’</p>
<p>‘Well. In a way.’</p>
<p>Jester blinks up at her. Her smile starts small and bursts into brilliance with a laugh.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>Beau is smiling when she heads up onto deck. Shelda shoots her a knowing grin. Beau ignores the hell out of that.</p>
<p>Fjord is propped up against the wheel and Beau collects the stool she had found for Orly, carries it over to him and bullies him into sitting down. Fjord resists nominally before he collapses down with a breath of relief.</p>
<p>Beau sets a hand on his shoulder, squeezes.</p>
<p>‘Y’know, I could get used to being a lazy captain. First mate doing everything for me and all that. Beau?’</p>
<p>‘Yeah.’</p>
<p>‘For real. Thank you. For taking care of everyone. And,’ he adds, ‘for letting Jester take care of you. She was worried.’</p>
<p>Beau grunts.</p>
<p>Fjord kicks her ankle.</p>
<p>‘Ow! Dude, what the hell?’</p>
<p>‘Sorry.’</p>
<p>‘Don’t sound sorry.’</p>
<p>‘Weird, that.’ Fjord tilts his head. ‘You feeling better?’</p>
<p>‘No! You kicked me!’</p>
<p>‘Beau,’ he chides. ‘Are you feeling <em>better</em>?’</p>
<p>She huffs. ‘I guess.’ It’s hard to say yes, because the <em>looking after them</em> thing isn’t the problem. She doesn’t think it is, anyway. She’s good at that. She’s capable. She <em>is</em> good in a crisis. Still. There is a breathing out, a relaxing of tension, when she sees Fjord next to her. Where he belongs. Her best friend. Her captain. Her brother.</p>
<p>‘Aye, Captain,’ she says, big and silly in that ridiculous voice, and Fjord smiles and laughs and the wind picks up again.</p>
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